Friday, October 28, 2016

It's been awhile since I did an angry, spittle flecked post where I just bitch and moan, so I figured I might as well get all the resentment I've had out of my system, so if you don't want to hear me calling your waifus shit or shitting on anime in general as interpreted by modern day, stop here.

Anyway, here goes.

I don't watch anime too much these days. Honestly, it's becoming boring and reduced to three genres,

1. Tits and ass fests with silly premises.
2. Shows about kicking ass.
3. Combinations of the first two.

Honestly, I just can't bring myself to give a flaming bag of dog shit over modern day anime. Even modern day hentai anime is boring as hell, merely recycling the following;

1. Animated adaptations of much better manga.
2. Shit I've seen better hentai do better about a decade ago.
3. Either being boring edgy shock fests or cliche sex fests.

This especially sucks because on the non hentai side of things, we don't get thoughtful stuff like Spirited Away, which you could show your kids for the most part and still is entertaining for adults as well. We don't get cerebral stuff like Ghost In the Shell, which managed to deliver fanservice, asskicking, and plenty of navel contemplation about cybernetics, the human soul, and an intensely computerized society at the same time while not crapping out on delivering all three well. We don't get mecha anime that are cheesy fun like Gao Gai Gar or politics meets mecha like Gundam Wing. We don't get decent comedies like Azumanga Daioh or even dark yet well written action series like Witch Hunter Robin. We don't even get to see edgy done right like Getter Robo (non classic versions like Armageddon) anymore.

What we get these days is recycled versions of older shows and Gundam has reinvented itself so much I can't bother sitting through it anymore because none of it breaks any major ground anymore and Gundam AGE's hideous attempt to mix Martian Successor Nadescio without any of the charm with Gundam pretty much spelled out my ending desire to give a rat fuck about Gundam anymore. Most comedies are becoming more and more dependent on sex jokes to the exclusion of all other forms of comedy, to the point the sex comedy anime of old that were South Park level raunchy seem downright classy by comparison. And while anime doesn't entirely shit the bed and we get decent stuff like One Punch Man and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, I find it sad that with the exception of action fests, all other forms of anime don't try anything interesting anymore, and even those action anime rely on flash and sizzle over substance to keep people watching, much like popcorn movies will keep you munching popcorn but when the movie ends your brain has registered nothing in reflection.

And even hentai is fucking boring. I'll never claim Night Shift Nurses is five star anime and it's not something I want to watch again because aspects of it really turn my stomach even now, so I find it sad even modern day edgelord hentai that try their best to make me puke and cry blood come off as so unmistakably tame, but then again, maybe I'm just so desensitized to the point I yawn while reading the Encyclopedia Dramatica "Offended" page that I have an immunity to cheap hentai shock.

And even the stuff that doesn't make me retch in the hentai world is kinda dull, partially due to that possible desensitizing issue, and also because modern day tits and ass anime (looking at you, Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid) try so damn hard to be hentai in all but name actual hentai seems more like a logical evolution than being a world beyond ordinary fanservice. Hell, one of the two minute OVA's for VDM featured a sex scene with more erotic attention than even most hentai get in an entire episode, so hentai doesn't really have that taboo "we can do stuff non hentai anime can't" barrier, at least not as much as it used to.

In fact, fuck it, shameful confession time, I used to be a massive anime fan because it appealed to my autistic tastes in entertainment I had cultivated since childhood, but these days that has atrophied so hard due to homogenization of a medium I once considered willing to take risks other media wouldn't that I find my autism is much more decently satisfied bitching about anime than I do actually watching it.

And while I did do an earlier article where I watched the anime "Keijo!!!!!!", I mostly did it to shit on the shitrag Kotaku, but I can't really say if someone handed me all the episodes of that show I'd be tempted to watch them anytime soon.

Which is a shame, because I used to be a sucker for watching any new anime that came down the pike.

Or maybe not, because none of it seems to break any new ground, most of it relies on asskicking and sex to sell ad nauseum, and I've seen so much of it cast aside any semblance of good taste, cleverness, originality, and charm that I honestly couldn't give a shit anymore.

And considering it only looks like it's getting worse, maybe that's a good thing.

The mod allows the player to literally build anywhere the player can plop down a workbench, even in interior areas, which means the player can pretty much rip down the world (especially with the Scrap Everything mod, though some objects are still not covered) to almost nothing save the bare ground.

However, I have discovered some things to keep in mind and some issues that can occur if you these mods.

* You can break the ability to ever have Codsworth join up with you if you use the Scrap Everything to scrap all the Radroaches and Bloatflies in Sanctuary, BEFORE you either tell him Shaun is missing and you checked Sanctuary, or before he accompanies you to look through Sanctuary and comes to that conclusion himself. The game scripting is dependent on the living and/or dead bodies of the monsters to be present because they allow the game scripting to progress the dialogue tree, serving as control switches. So, if you kill the bugs, then talk to Codsworth, the game will register the dead bodies as being present in the game world and present the option to tell Codsworth you checked those locations already, since he goes with you if you haven't and will help you kill them instead. It's safe to remove them from the game world via scrapping or the console with the "disable" command AFTER this has occurred, before will break the game quest logic. This can also break quests in other areas, so make sure you've not removed corpses until after their intended quest purpose is over.

* In general, scrapping corpses can and in most cases will prevent their re-spawning in many areas, so be careful if you use these mods, since you can even remove monsters before they appear (in the game engine, they have invisible placement triggers that spawn them that some scrapping mods allow you to remove), so if you want to kill them again when they re-spawn for more loot when the cell refreshes its contents, don't scrap the bodies. This also applies to items you can find as well as containers, scrapping them will prevent them from ever re-spawning, so pick up the items manually or place them in the workbench when using the Conquest mod.

Exterior cells, unless they are too close to another settlement's crafting radius, these can be scrapped down to nothing if you so choose, but this can lead to some issues.

* The game makes frequent use of "culling", a graphical trick the game engine uses to save VRAM. This means if certain areas are never meant to be seen from certain angles by the player, they will be "culled" from display from that angle, saving VRAM and processing cycles. Unfortunately, these mods allow scrapping objects that block culled areas, which can cause these areas to freak out and the game world will appear to blink out of existence while walking through these areas. This can be disabled to a degree with tweaks to the game INI file, but a more efficient solution is to create a mod that adds a checkmark to disable culling in the affected cells. This has it's own problems since you must apply this checkmark to all cells loaded around the affected game cell, and while some mods exist to do this to a limited degree, this can cause the average gamer issues in areas not addressed by a culling disabler mod (which needs to load dead last in your load order to work)

* Another related issue is that scrapping certain objects in exterior cells can leave literal holes in the game world. For instance, scrapping the huge rocks around the Quarry Excavations area will leave some nightmarishly huge holes in the world itself, which the rocks filled in. This can be ameliorated somewhat with mods that allow the player to re-add landscaping objects to the world, but sometimes you can't place objects to fill the holes. Thankfully, if using the Conquest mod, it makes a save file by default every time you set up or remove a workbench, so just go back in time if you leave a game world hole and remember to leave those objects unscrapped next time.

* Interior areas are even more bizarre. Some objects are expected to exist in a cell, and their removal will not only result in culling issues, the player will experience the world going white in the affected areas. Disabling the culling in these cells does not address the problem like it does in exteriors, which means a modder would have to manually edit these cells to fix this.

* Generally, you can scrap small objects, most trees, cars and some wall and ground decor with no problems. Scrapping entire building sections can result in culling issues, especially if the objects were never originally intended to be scrappable. Again, some mods fix these issues, hunt them down before you go nuts ripping the world apart with a workbench.

* Another rule of thumb: Some objects just cannot be scrapped. Some are part of "static collections", which are a bunch of meshes and textures grouped together, and the only way to remove some of these is via the console "disable" command. Also, some objects cannot be relocated or moved around without the Place Everywhere mod, which I highly recommend if seeing things like objects hanging sideways in midair just drives your sense of feng shui crazy.

* A curious thing I've noticed is that in some areas you can't place a workbench on bare ground, though you can on top of a scrappable object like a debris decal or trash pile. This is likely because the workbench requires a solid mesh to sit on, and since some areas are literally blank space underneath the ground texture, the game is reluctant to plop down the Workbench because it could fall through the floor. This is particularly prevalent in interior areas. Oddly, if you scrap the object the workbench sat on, it will automatically fall to the ground and stay there like it would normally.

* A final rule: I highly recommend a mod that makes junk weigh nothing if you compulsively use this mod, because everything you scrap that returns a resource will have weight, and you will wind up having to carry it all the second you remove a workbench.

Monday, October 24, 2016

I just recently bought a ton of FPS related stuff on Steam, mostly because I was feeling horribly nostalgic.

I've been a long time Doom fanboy, mostly because it's got great music, simple yet fun gameplay, and it's "kill them dead" goal for the demons is just pretty damn fun.

Of course, like most people, I cannot bear to play these games in their original glory via DOSbox, so I play them via source ports (Zandronum being my usual source port, though GZDoom is a nice alternative).

But even in their original, low resolution, grainy as heck glory, I always found Doom just rang some sort of bell in my mind.

I did play Quake a long time ago, so I recently acquired it again because it's been so long since I last played it I wanted to remember why I hadn't played it in so long.

I remembered why soon enough.

Quake has everything Doom has to have added via source ports, like true 3D modeling and pre rendered lightmaps and particles, but I'll be the first guy to tell people fancy graphics don't make games fun, good gameplay makes games fun.

Quake and Doom have a lot in common on the gameplay front, which they should, since the former descends from the latter in terms of design and game concept, but for some reason, I just can't bring myself to enjoy Quake as much,
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Part of the reason is that Quake feels much slower paced. I like how Doom has constant action and the lack of having to watch your back is either the result of leaving a mountain of corpses in your wake or you just not having activated a trap that suddenly has a shitload of demons trying to murder you.

Another reason I like Doom is that it has very memorable rock style music. Quake went more for ambient horror, and while that's not bad at all (the creators of the ambient music for the PSX ports of Doom deserve a medal, that stuff is legit creepy), it doesn't really inspire me to kick ass and take names.

And speaking of horror, while Doom is fairly colorful, it balances out the color with a lot of dark shadowy areas. Quake is a nigh constant darkened area fest, and even the monsters have the same dreary look,. And while I love the Lovecraft style freaky Quake had going for it, it was so monotone and repetitive I just wasn't as pumped to kill things like Doom can inspire me to do.

Of course, Quake is by no means a bad game. Quake II is something I have much fonder and more recent memories of, but the first Quake just does not excite me as a FPS fan like the first Doom for reasons of taste, though I can't deny I'm glad Doom source ports have decided to import and improve on what the first Quake got right.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

I just finished playing the visual novel Negligee, and LOL, it is hilarious.

While it's main hook is a bunch of yuri (lesbian for the non moonspeakers) stuff, the real main hook of the game is the humor.

The main character Hannah has an inner dialogue that will not fail to make you laugh every five minutes, the character Sophie is what happens when you make a bisexual fan of Encyclopedia Dramatica a fictional character, the character Jasmin is a hilarious foil for Sophie, and even the shy, demure Charlotte has her moments of making you laugh.

Another main draw is that the best ending is actually pretty hard to get without paying careful attention to all the choices and fulfilling a lot of other conditions, which, as someone who appreciates decent game logic and clever writing as well as being a game developer who has tried to write well thought out dialogue trees myself, I deeply appreciate the effort that went into the game flags for certain story options.

And yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't say I appreciate the yuri content, which is actually pretty good and nicely straddles the line between raunchy and tasteful, but frankly, even in it's censored form (without the adult patch from the author's webiste), the humor and story tree logic as I explained above were more than worth the price of admission, and while the creator of the game has made some games that are honestly crap, this is one of the shining jewels of their portfolio, so I recommend anyone who wants a hilarious yuri visual novel to go to Nutaku or Steam and throw your money at the creator of this game, it's worth the price of admission.

The DLC is nice and pretty cheap, so if you don't mind plunking down a few extra dollars, go ahead and buy that too.

Note: This only covers the base game content, this does not address the currently unreleased prequel story addons that are in development.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

In a previous post, since some guy who is apparently ignorant of the fact reviewing media is kinda what I do and even reviewing pornographic media is part of that decided to rail at me for being a "Christian hypocrite" even though I've never hidden that from anyone, I've decided to prove my point by giving a detailed review of a hentai game I recently finished.

Note: Spoilers below.

I recently played the official English translation of Kyonyuu Fantasy, localized as (LOL) Funbag Fantasy, because the title would literally translate to "Huge Breasts Fantasy" and the localized English title rolls off the tongue better, not to mention is pretty funny.

I played it and watched the hentai OVA based off it in 2012 for a friend of mine curious about it, but to my surprise, it actually wasn't all that bad, at least the game. In fact, it was actually pretty hilarious.

But before I cover the game, let me cover the anime.

The anime, like most Hentai OVAs are wont to do, it is basically two thirty minute episodes of some red haired douchebag getting laid with various basketball breasted women and little else, most of the plot is pared down so as to not get in the way of the sex scenes, and the protagonist is generic anime horndog number #76541.

Basically, going off the anime alone, if all you cared about was the sex scenes, you'll be fine, but it had little else going for it, and after having played the game, stick with the game, its much better and actually has a lot more plot to offer, as well as some funny as hell comedy.

The game stars Lute Henge, a guy who is described as a slacker but is obviously smarter than that, who graduated drop dead last from his kingdom's Knight Academy, and is basically sent off to some hick province called Boan, where he'll hopefully wind up dead.

Reading between the lines and seeing a bunch of obvious clues early on, you find out the Knights Academy is riddled with nepotism and thus Lute got shoved to the bottom of the pile for the sake of allowing some actual losers to graduate, and he's basically picked on because he doesn't have cushy connections, which is bizarre, because the knight system is supposed to be a meritocracy as described in game.

This actually becomes important later.

Anyway, once he arrives in the economically depressed agricultural province of Boan, the Prefect there sends Lute on a suicide mission to deal with a demon draining men dry.......I think I don't have to explain what that means, do I?

Amazingly enough, said demon (a succubus named Shamshiel) jumps his bones one night and tries to literally screw him to death, and to both of their shock, he survives and is still ready to go on for more.

Normally, you'd assume this is that typically porn cliche about an endlessly virile guy, but trust me, this is actually an important plot point.

Getting back on track, he survives, Shamshiel decides to basically be his servant in exchange for using him as an occasional stud horse, which he's cool with so long as he doesn't die from it, not to mention that while he is a surprisingly nice guy (contrary to the borderline dickhead he was in anime), he's an admitted fan of huge boobs and getting laid.

The Prefect is stunned Lute didn't die in what was the most obvious Uriah Gambit ever, so his next job is for Lute to be his wife's personal guard. Said wife is Roxanne, a very "talented" woman who isn't an asshole despite her station, and obviously her and her husband are not close, and it quickly becomes obvious why he wants you to be her guard: It's a second Uriah Gambit to tempt his wife into seducing you so he can get rid of you both, which is helped along by the fact he husband hates her for her busty figure (and is heavily implied to be a lolicon), theirs was a political marriage to begin with, and just to make this little plan go smoother, he has her secretly doped up on aphrodisiacs.

This plan dies on the vine partially because Shamshiel ran interference, but also because Roxanne herself figured it out, and the Prefect's attempts to capitalize on the plan once he catches Lute and Roxanne inflagrant delectio is foiled by some last minute intervention that takes the Prefect out of the picture.

In the process, Lute stumbles across proof the Prefect was plotting treason, with some fat bastard named Prince Bobon (one of the guys who got promoted over Lute at the academy even though he's dumber than a bag of rocks and all he has going for him is being the King's son) no less, and he manages to fake being the Prefect long enough to get Bobon to hand him proof he was willing to sell out his own father for power.

The Boan arc ends with Lute being beloved by the people of Boan, Roxanne especially, and he gets summoned to King's presence in the imperial city.

If you choose to end the game here and return to Boan by picking the first choice, you get the game's first ending, where you head back to Boan, make an honest woman of Roxanne, do a lot more for the people of Boan than it's corrupt former leader ever did, and while Shamshiel is kinda disappointed, she decided to keep in touch at least.

However, if you decide to pick the second choice to become part of the Royal Guard as reward for your services in Boan, you have two ending routes, one involving a former female classmate named Isis who you now work with and one involving Shamshiel.

If you follow Isis' route, you and Isis decide to scout out a forest where demons live and where lots of people have wound up dead, get as far as some mysterious temple, find out Lute can understand demonic speech, and find out for some weird reason demons revere Lute. You even find a mysterious throne inside the temple (which you don't sit in), and along the way Isis, (who basically hated Lute ever since the academy where he perved on her) winds up changing her mind about Lute, because we find out she is arranged to married some prick named Motaire, another former Knight's Academy alumni, who is the hentai game equivalent to Disney's Gaston (airheaded bimbos who hang off him, being an egotistical jackass who is full of himself, etc.).

He also made their arranged marriage (which she wanted to make work on her end) die before it got off the ground by being a womanizing asshat, and thanks to Lute saving Isis from dying due to a demonic poison that turned her into a lusting animal (and would have driven her insane had he not......you get the idea), she starts to warm up to him as they continue their mission, and by the time they find out about the temple and the throne room, they head back to report what they found. Also, Isis, now realizing Lute isn't half as bad as she thought (not to mention was really, really hard up because Motaire wouldn't sleep with her), is considering breaking off her engagement to Motaire.

Unfortunately, once they get back, the Prime Minister (he becomes even more important later on in other routes) discovers what they found out, especially the information about the temple and the throne room, and asks Isis several pointed questions about it, and asks if Lute sat in the throne. He didn't, and he tells her why he's relieved: Lute is a demon, and had he sat on the throne, he would have gained the power to become king of all demons, and thus orders her to kill him.

She decides to instead warn Lute there is a price on his head now, Motaire shows up to do the job as the Prime Minister's insurance policy (having fed Motiare the same information), and thanks to a last minute save by Shamshiel, they escape, flee the kingdom, and wind up living to together in some foreign land as husband and wife in their ending. Shamshiel disappears from the plot in this end after her last minute save.

However, if you pick Shamshiel's version of this route, they only get as far as the temple, not entering the throne room, but still report what they found. The Prime Minister's murder plot changes somewhat, and he instead send Lute back with some handpicked guards to do a second investigation, which is really the guards jumping Lute when he's not looking and trying to drown him.

Shamshiel saves him again, and we find out the Prime Minster wasn't lying. Lute DOES have some demonic lineage, specifically is the son of the former demon king (making him essentially half-incubi), which explains why Shamshiel didn't kill him earlier on, and we find out, in a nice twist on the "just because they are called demons they aren't evil" trope, the demons recognized Lute off the bat, and explain to him, from their point of view, humans are "devils", and that one of them tried to seize the power of the king of demons and that they are glad he showed up in the hopes of stopping said human.

Turns out said human is Bobon, whose next plot for power was to sit on the demon king's throne to gain power one way since his other plot for power fell through, and in an awesome and hilarious scene that even parodies Dragonball Z at one point, Lute owns the shit out of Bobon despite him turning into a demon by realizing the full potential of his own demonic heritage, and sits on his throne as the Prince of Bel- I mean, becomes the next king of demons.

This unfortunately means Lute cannot return back to the land of humans since (A) they'll try to kill him and (B) it would cause a war as is mentioned by Shamshiel as part of the backstory for someone to take his crown and seize said power themselves, so Lute decides to seal off the demonic forest and prevent any other power hungry human from trying to seize that power and decides to live happily ever after among the demons and Shamshiel.

Third route, should Lute choose to become a general as a reward for his service in Boan, this one is interesting, because it's the only way to get the "Harem ending", and while you don't have to play the Isis/Shamshiel routes first, it makes a lot more sense if you have.

Anyway, this route concerns Lute being sent off to defend against the son of Wackenheim, who has long held a resistance to kingdom since the former Duke Wackenheim never saw eye to eye with the King over the whole "knights should be based on merit, not bloodline" reform the King was pushing back in the day, and now his son is continuing the rebellion.

When he gets to the fortress literally across from Wackenheim's own, he find the three top generals of the Kingdom (Felzen, Zant, Schlamm) totally refuse to work with him since they assume he's a loser, and there seems to be no easy way to break the stalemale the Imperial forces are stuck in.

While on recon, he saves a busty Amazonian chick from some assassins in the most hilarious way possible (involving, no kidding, two carrots, some quick thinking, and the assassins being rather stupid), and he escorts her home, only to find out she's actually Gladys Wackenheim, the "son" of Wackenheim (referred to as such since she's built like a guy aside from the whole busty supermodel thing), and partially in gratitude for saving her life and partially because she can't tell if Lute's a dumbass with a thing for huge tits (yeah, he tried to hit on her) or a genius with a perverted streak, she tells him the real enemy is closer than he thinks and that she looks forward to their next meeting, letting him leave her fortress as a sign of respect.

Meanwhile, we find out the generals really want Lute out of the way since they see him as useful as the protagonist of Gilligan's Island, and we find out they were behind the assassins from before, who try to kill Lute with them again, only for Lute to wind up kicking their assess in his sleep.

Apparently, when Lute tosses and turns in his sleep, he's prone to launching really swift right hooks.

Shamshiel winds up foiling another attempt by assassins later, and the general screw up at one point and accidentally reveal they hired the assassins by saying too much. Around the same time, Wan Coan (Lute's adjutant at that post) jumps the gun and proposes a trial by combat with Gladys since he thinks they'd be screwed if Lute led them into battle, leaving Lute with a problem.

If he imprisons or even executes the generals, he won't have anyone competent around to defend the place, even though they themselves tell Lute they'd kill him if he did what they tried to do to him. And Wan Coan jumping the gun leaves him with no other choice but to face Gladys in a trial by combat or look like a total wuss.

He breaks even by having Wan Coan imprisoned until the day of the trial by combat, then pardons the generals, explaining to them he figured since their assassins weren't very good at all it was a test of his skill, and tells them that if shit goes totally pear-shaped he wants them to take over should he lose the trial by combat, even pulling aside Felzen and privately asking him to make sure there aren't any other actual assassins out for him (since at least one of the assassin squads was not under their orders), and when Felzen openly admits Lute is placing his life in the hands of someone who tried to kill him, Lute admits as much, but says he knows he's not that smart and trusts Felzen to do his job for the King if the worst happens, leaving Felzen wondering if they misjudged Lute.

Meanwhile, Gladys deliver the terms of the trial by combat: a chess match. She wins, Lute surrenders. He wins, she surrenders.

He's given three days to prepare, and Lute is nervous, since he's a dumbass at chess. Motaire and Isis are sent to the fortress around this time to back him up, and Motaire blows a head gasket, assumes Lute's gonna fuck up, refuses to help Lute learn how to play chess since he assumes Lute's an idiot, and basically assumes the worst, and we find out Motaire knew Gladys as a child and she even schooled him in chess.

Lute doesn't know what he's gonna do and decides to spend the three days chillin because he decides he has no other better plan, and in the meantime we discover courtesy of Shamshiel the backstory of the world bears a disturbing resemblance to Christianity, even mentioning the basics of Noah's ark at one point.

Brief aside here, the world is heavily implied to be a parallel universe Earth according to various hints dropped through the plot.

At the end of the three days, Lute decides to have one last meal before he has that chess match, prepared by the recently released Wan Coan as a thank you beforehand.

When the actual chess match happens, hilarity occurs as Lute gets hit with a massive case of diarrhea, and while just trying to end the chess match as fast as possible so he make it to the can before his pants explode, he winds up winning the chess match due to extreme dumb luck and leaves everyone present with a O_O face as he runs off to the nearest toilet.

Once he gets back, Gladys surrenders, only asking her men be spared, to which Lute reveals he asked the King in advance to be able to make that decision, saying he'll leave them under guard but unharmed, taking her as a prisoner. Later, in the dungeon, she asks him why he hasn't killed her to stop the rebellion, and he reveals (A) he realized he would only inflame the rebellion by doing so and (B) he hasn't even gotten a chance to, no shit, fondle her boobs yet.

She's actually amused by this and dares him to try to getting her off right there in the dungeon, and it turns out she was bluffing hard, was actually a virgin, and after they spend the night getting laid until Lute passes out from fatigue. He wakes up the next morning in his own bed with a happy Gladys, who swears her life to his and later tells the stunned generals, Motaire, and Isis she's Lute's woman now and whatever he wants, she'll do for him.

The generals (Felzen especially) are impressed Lute ended the rebellion bloodlessly, Motaire is hilariously apoplectic because he always had a crush on her and is incensed Lute won her heart, and we get a funny scene where he tries to throttle Lute only to get a total beatdown at her hands. We also find out Wan Coan was the one who poisoned Lute with laxatives, apparently on behalf of the party who sent out the unaccounted for assassins, and Wan Coan commits suicide before he rats out his boss.

Later, back in the Imperial City, Gladys formally surrenders before the King, revealing the real reason for the rebellion: Duke Wackenheim merely thought the reforms were too early and would provoke a civil war with the nobles, so he started the rebellion to contain the dissidents until someone like Lute who realized bloodshed would just be counterproductive came along and ended things, and Lute's solution is basically grant them all amnesty, with Gladys having to swear loyalty to the king and her forces ordered to stand down and repair all the damage left by the rebellion, and so long as they do that, they will be forgiven.

Everyone but the Prime Minister is happy with this, with him pulling a Walter Peck and being the quintessential asshole bureaucrat about the solution, but the King tells him to sit down and shut up.
Gladys returns to quell the remaining rebels as promised and wants Lute to marry her someday.

Later, a victory banquet is held, Lute gets introduced to the Princess Luserina (who has the largest rack in the game), Motaire is so damn jealous he tries to attack Lute again and General Zant has his ass thrown out for being an idiot, and Isis admits to Lute she might have been wrong about him.
The next few days or so have Lute asked to teach Luserina swordplay, Motaire getting his teeth knocked down his throat by Felzen for again attacking Lute, and we find out the Prime Minister and his beautiful but icy demeanored attendant Emeralia are plotting to screw Lute over because the Prime Minister is jealous of Lute's growing popularity.

Their plan is yet another Uriah Gambit. We find out the royal family has a little bit of demonic lineage themselves on the female side, and their plan is induce Lute to fall for Luserina (who has sylph blood in her), who the Prime Minister expects will kill Lute because sylphs literally drain the lifeforce out of those they sleep with, and Emeralia, realizing Luserina has a crush on Lute, is instructed to goad Luserina into acting on her own crush on Lute.

The plan works, with Luserina and Lute getting closer and closer to doing the deed, and when they finally give in, Emeralia sees that Lute is somehow still alive, so she decides to try seducing Lute herself, partially to figure out why he isn't dead yet.

However, Lute has cottoned on what has been going on, and even though Emeralia is actually a powerful sorceress and she tries to use her magic to ensorcle him while they are doing the deed, he turns the table on her her, and thanks to his demonic lineage, is not only able to successfully resist, he gets her off so good he manages to get her to spill her guts about the the Prime Minister's plan.

Later, assuming you choose to end the game there, Emeralia reports the plan somehow failed (though omits her own spilling her guts to Lute), The Prime Minister is flabbergasted but goes for Plan B: catch Lute in the act with Luserina again and shame him in front of the King.

This amusingly backfires as the King was kinda hoping his daughter would hook up with a worthy man sooner or later {it's also implied his own wife did something similar as his daughter did to Lute), and considering all of Lute's earlier actions, he's thrilled when Lute offers to make an honest woman of his daughter and marries her. The Prime Minister tries to object but can't really manage a decent one, and we get an ending where Lute and Luserina marry, Shamshiel disappears again, and Gladys is disappointed but still send him a lot of wedding gifts.

The Harem route is the final route and brings everything full circle, and it reveals the Prime Minister was the one who (A) was secretly using the rebellion for his own attempts to remain in power (B) was behind all the attempts to screw over Lute and (C) he's so obsessed with power he'll do anything to keep it., especially when he finds out the King was planning to retire and was considering Lute to take the throne.

So much so, he murders the King and frames Lute for it, and when Shamshiel tries to unmask his plans, turns out the Prime Minister was so paranoid he had defenses against her usual abilities of being invisible and magically barred her from spying on him, so she rounds up the other ladies from all the other routes, lets them in on what's really going on, and they all join forces to save their man from execution.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister (also revealed to be behind Bobon's treachery) is planning to put Bobon on the throne, who he hopes will be a pliant stooge, but quickly becomes more trouble than he's worth, and is such a dick the Prime Minister winds up regretting the decision, and Motaire, while he hated Lute, winds up being abused and screwed over by Bobon even worse, and when he realizes the Prime Minister sees him as a mere pawn, he has a conscience attack, further goaded on by the other ladies, even General Felzen joins in on telling him he needs to do a little soul searching.

Emeralia also winds up having a conscience attack, having been used as an accomplice to frame Lute, and we find out she's the Prime Minister's illegitimate daughter and that her father only saw her as a tool and little more, and her guilt over framing Lute gets so bad she tries to free him, fails, and winds up in the same cell as him awaiting execution, where Lute forgives her and thanks her, saying he's happy he won't die alone. Meanwhile, Roxanne acts as Luserina's decoy so Luserina can keep everyone else in the loop.

By execution day, Bobon and the Prime Minister ask Lute if he has any last words, and they get interrupted when Gladys reappears, leading the other generals and her own forces to free Lute, prompting Emeralia to tell the world how the Prime Minister is the real murderer, and Shamshiel takes advantage of the fact the Prime Minister's defenses against her are down to appear before him and make him look desperate to save his own ass when he screams about a demon (that only he can see), prompting him and Bobon to flee.

Everyone else gives chase, and while the Prime Minister makes it back to his chambers, where he has a magical escape plan ready, Bobon is caught and cut down by Felzen for collaborating with the King's murderer. Meanwhile, Gladys corners the Prime Minister, who reveals he has the world's only combustion pistol and uses it to buy himself enough time to use a magic portal to teleport to the main chamber of the castle to flee.

Lute catches up with him, he's completely surrounded by everyone in the story, even Motaire, who cuts off any remaining retreat by finally casting aside his arrogance and choosing to do the right thing for once, prompting the Prime Minister to try playing off Lute's penchant for being a nice guy by begging for mercy.

Lute for once doesn't show any as Gladys puts him down for his crimes.

The ending is basically Lute becoming the king of the land, every character who was either good or was even redeemable in any fashion getting a happy ending (Motaire not only got a big promotion, even higher than before, he also finally shows Lute the honor he's due), alongside a lot of scenes of every romancable lady in the game getting it on with Lute, and if you're a fan of the paizuri fetish, there is TON of those scenes if you are into that.

Overall, the game proved to be worth playing, actually had a much thicker plot than the anime did, was surprisingly hilarious, and while it wasn't high on replay value, it was definitely worth the time I spent on it. And if big boobs and the associated fetishes attached to them are your thing, then trust me, this game does not fail to deliver.

If you want to buy this highly recommended work, it can be purchased off MangaGamer's website.

Since anything they whine about turns out to be not half as bad as they claim, I decided to check it out.

The first episode begins with a keijo competition underway, and the rules are as follows:

* Everyone competes on "The Land", a floating platform in a pool, and only feet are allowed to touch it during play. All other body parts are immediate dis-qualifiers.
** There are narrow pontoon bridges they must cross to compete on one of the floating "Land" platforms, falling off is also an immediate dis-qualifier.
* The idea is for all competitors (women only) to be the only one left, and they can only knock other competitors off using their boobs and butts only (they must be used offensively to push the other competitors off)

Simple enough, really, and faintly ridiculous on paper, but as the show depicts, it actually takes a bit of skill to keep your balance and use chest and hip thrusts to propel your breasts and backside as beaters to knock the other competitors off, and they depict it as a serious sport.

And yes, while it's definitely got some fanservice, Kotaku's Cecilia D'Anastasio seems to have just watched just enough of the show to get offended and write a hit piece, since she ends with some scornful summary that it reduces women to pieces of meat and that people should be ashamed to watch it.

First off, allow me to offer a rebuttal, having watched it myself.

As depicted, it requires intense coordination and balance to succeed at this sport, like any other IRL sport. And let's be fair, the T&A only limitation puts even MORE emphasis on how much skill is needed to succeed at this depicted sport, since to even use either body part to launch an attack means sacrificing some balance, so it's a calculated decision made on the fly to go on the offensive, and even playing on the defensive is difficult since it's a floating platform with all the risks that entails, and that's without even getting into fending off other people trying to knock you off.

So, in essence, this is not just a T&A show with fanservice as the only goal, it's kinda relevant to the fictional sport being depicted since the women involved can only used those body parts in an offensive role, much like how one can only use their feet in soccer.

As for the plot being thin, well no shit, it's a show about a girl who wants to be the best she can be at the sport (and more power to her, and I would think a woman could appreciate a story with female empowerment as a theme), they admit up front the plot is simple, and there is nothing wrong with a thin plot in this type of genre because the main action is the sports action, and that doesn't require writing an uber-intricate plot for.

However, the main gripe here seems to be it's a fanservice show, that's bad, and any American who watches it should feel bad if they like it, and the unstated but obvious addendum the Japanese should have been ashamed to produce it.

To that, I have this rebuttal:

Cecilia D'Anastasio, you are entitled to your opinion, I will not dispute that, but here's my opinion on your opinion.

You are not an arbiter of public morality, and you never will be. So long as the medium is legal to produce, watch, and acquire, people will indulge themselves in it if happens to strike their fancy and there is nothing you can do about it. If Americans (like myself) enjoy it, well I don't give a shit if you complain about me liking it and since I first heard of it thanks to you, you have my ironic thanks for introducing me to something I find somewhat amusing and entertaining based as much on the merit of the fictional sport depicted as I do the women who bust their ass looking good while playing it. In fact, these women are working to keep their bodies in shape in an intensely competitive sport, so I'd expect they'd look good, and if you think I'm deplorable for liking to watch athletic women looking good while engaging in a sports activity, then so be it, I could care less.

And finally, while it's not said outright, you are basically complaining the Japanese even made it, and on the behalf of the creator, I'm offended you hate their creation simply because it offends your culturally myopic morality, so I recommend you not watch it if it offends you so greatly, no one has or ever will put a gun to your head and force you to do so, especially not the Japanese creators who were kind enough to allow and encourage other cultures to enjoy the merits of their artistic creations.